"Watch out!" Dalia was a blur, and so were her thoughts, as she flung herself at the little girl crouched behind the nearby building. Dalia stretched out a hand, praying she would reach the girl before the fireball did. Years of practice came back to Dalia in a fraction of a second as she swooped in, grabbed the girl, and carried her away from the blast all in one fluid motion.
"Hey! What the-?! Put me down!" The girl's voice was shrill, and her words and tone stopped Dalia dead in her tracks.
"Wh-what?" Dalia practically screeched to a halt, eyes widening as she held the girl away from herself to get a better look at her.
"Couldn't you see that I was in the middle of something?" The girl pouted, arms crossed as Dalia held her up by her armpits.
"Th-there w-w-was a robot… about to shoot you…" Dalia blinked, suddenly questioning her own sanity as she looked down at her tiny, ungrateful rescue. Speaking out loud that which she had previously only observed also helped Dalia put her words into perspective. There was a robot about to shoot the girl? What? Dalia only had time to start to look over her shoulder when she saw a jet of orange flame hissing at her.
"WOAH!" Dalia once again jumped out of the way in the nick of time, shielding the girl in her arms from the heat. As rude as she was, and as much as it caught Dalia off guard, she certainly wasn't going to just let the girl get hurt because of it! Fear could do strange things to people, after all. Maybe she wasn't usually like this? But as Dalia would soon see, this girl—Elsie—was indeed usually like this.
"At last, at last!" Elsie muttered to herself, a mad glint in her amber eyes as she all but cackled and rubbed her hands together in wicked delight. "I have finally found an opponent worthy of moi!" For half a second, Dalia thought Elsie meant her.
Elsie flicked her hands forward and four, tall, muscled bodyguards clad in all black suddenly stepped from the shadows in perfect, ominous unison. Dalia raised her fists and grit her teeth, but then she realized that they were looking just above and behind her…
For a third time, Dalia saw a robot on a rooftop pointing its literal firearm down at her and the other white-haired girl, but for once, because the robot did not fire immediately, Dalia had the chance to discern more of its features. Was she… seeing… green hair?
"Thanks, lady, but I didn't need saving!" Elsie sneered, cackling disdainfully as she gestured with one hand to her quartet of black suits. One of her eyes drifted shut as she observed them lazily out of the other. "I'm not a damsel in distress! I'm the queen that commands the army! My forces of darkness!" She raised her arms proudly as she smiled up at Dalia, but that smile turned into a scowl when she looked higher.
"And you, Shimizu… You may think you have the superior guard, but I WILL prove you wrong, you hear me?!" Her voice rose in intensity, volume, and pitch as she pointed up accusatorily. Dalia, meanwhile, shut an eye as she winced at Elsie's shrill voice. Then it hit her. Shimizu…
"And I told you, Elsie! The Shimizu Samurais are the best my family has to offer! They, and by extension we, cannot be defeated!" Esora's plucky, perky, lovely voice rang out from above. Right behind the green-haired robot stood its green-haired creator.
"P-KEY FIRE!" It intoned. Another jet of orange shot down from above. Elsie's bodyguards jumped up, and although Dalia didn't see how, they managed to protect her and Elsie both from the descending wall of flames. Dalia didn't even feel a gust of warm air.
"H-how?" Dalia gasped. What sort of combat were they trained in to do something like that? It was a blow that should've killed them, but the next thing Dalia knew, four bodyguards were again lunging at Esora and her robot protectors again.
"If anything, I should be the one protecting you!" Elsie grinned, cheeky, smug, and proud. Dalia was still shaking from wide-eyed disbelief and stupefaction. It made Elsie giggle. "Awww, you sure are adorable! Elsie even sort of wants to protect you now! And my bodyguards are certainly quite capable of it, but… first things first. I have a score to settle."
Instantly, all the sweetness, cuteness, light, and levity drained out of Elsie, replaced by grim determination and sadistic anticipation. "You are free to flee. Or to stay. I care not. However, as I said before, my guards canprotect you if you choose to stay. Consider it a… token of my gratitude. Just this once. But for now, I have other matters to attend to!" She walked away without another look back.
Dalia was still stupefied, but once she finally came back to her senses, she attempted to make her way over to Esora. Have no idea what's going on. At least Esora's a familiar face.
In the beginning, though, Esora did not recognize Dalia, and Dalia wasn't able to reach her until after an intense battle with the Yuka Bot, which Dalia soundly defeated, but the Yuka Bot made it a battle hard won.
The real Yuka would've been proud! Dalia smiled ruefully down at the smoldering, sparking scraps of metal lying in a pool of oil, some of it spattered on Dalia. She rubbed her bloody knuckles apologetically, and that was when Esora finally saw her from close enough to recognize her.
"Omigosh, Dalia?!" From what Esora confirmed, Elsie was a "new kid on the block", but she wasted no time in trying to assert dominance over the community. Of course, Esora didn't take too kindly to that type of bullying from an entitled rich girl. The town wasn't big enough for the two of them! So, after an argument escalated into a bet about their bodyguards, a battle ensued shortly after that. Esora pitted her Peaky Bots against Elsie's black suits, and they were surprisingly evenly matched, the fight having gone on for about 15 minutes by the time Dalia arrived.
"And you thought a bodyguard battle was the best decision?!" Dalia cried. She understood the allure of combat, but not if it actually put innocent lives at risk! Maybe Esora programmed her bots to only attack Elsie and her goons, but Elsie and her goons weren't half as considerate. As if to enunciate that point, Elsie went speeding by in a black car driven by more of her bodyguards.
"Thanks for the help with the Yuka Bot! I never would've been able to take her on my own!" Elsie cackled and waved as she rolled her window up.
Dalia entered the scene wishing to protect Elsie, but after a talk with Esora, although she still did not wish to harm Elsie, she was far more willing to assist Esora and her remaining Peaky Bots in defeating Elsie and her guards. Somehow, even though Esora was down half her team, Elsie still had all four bodyguards alive and well, seemingly untouched and unruffled.
"Where do they keep coming from?!" Esora complained. "It's like she keeps switching them out! There's no way that these are the same guys I started fighting with! They're too… clean!"
And Dalia realized that Esora was right. Not a single crinkle in a single black uniform, and no sweat or blood on any of them, dark sunglasses still perfectly aligned on every smooth, expressionless face. Either they were clones, or they were the best-trained human soldiers on Earth!
"Oh, boo hoo, have I been betrayed?" Elsie pouted, pretending to weep as she and her ever-present quartet found Esora and Dalia again. She could tell from the way Esora and Dalia were hunched over, heads almost touching, both of their expressions grim, that they were conspiring against her. That meant whatever ally she used to have in Dalia was no more.
And they say I'M the villain! Stupid Shimizu! Get your own little minion sidekick! Stop stealing mine! Oh well, if she was really so quick to side with Shimizu even after seeing Shimizu ATTACK ME, do I even want someone like her around? She may have muscles, but so do I! Elsie again raised her arms and her four bodyguards stepped out from behind her, two flanking her on either side.
"No, still perfectly fine with protecting you again if you ever need it," Dalia replied evenly, entering a fighting stance alongside Esora and the remaining Peaky Bots as Elsie summoned her guards, but Dalia made no move to strike. "Just won't hesitate to protect others from you if they need it!" she added. Elsie only laughed and clapped at her.
"Oh, what a witty, lovely, heroic one-liner!" She cawed, shaking her head and snorting with laughter. "Weronika would love this!" A moment later, disgust and annoyance replaced her sadistic mirth. Dalia wasn't trying to sound like an all-loving, self-sacrificing hero, but because she wasn't, that was what made her sound even more like one! It was something right out of a superhero movie, and every bit as cliché as Elsie had come to know and despise. Even if villains had cliches too, at least they were fun, and not so insufferably self-righteous!
A second later, her four henchmen lunged at the first Peaky Bot, taking Esora's side by surprise just because of the intense and unprovoked nature of the blow. Elsie only smirked as they cried out and struggled to retaliate, metal clashing on metal as the robots battled Elsie's armed forces. This was the stuff of life! Copying her most idolized supervillains and doing everything within her wealth and power to bring their schemes to life! It kept the boredom far at bay. Soon, watching from the sidelines was not enough, and Elsie decided to join her bodyguards in the battle.
"Are you ready, Esora, darling?" she taunted as she gestured for one of her four protectors to toss her a spare weapon.
"Ready to be rid of you? I've been ready since before the day we met!" Esora snapped, patting her robot on the back and encouraging it forward. It nodded at her before sprinting at Elsie.
"And best of luck to you as well, Dalia!" Elsie saluted the other woman mockingly. "I look forward to seeing how you perform on the battlefield!"
Unlike Esora, Dalia did not engage with Elsie's banter, rather, she met the smaller girl's gaze evenly, eyes narrowed in determination. So far, none of Elsie's guards managed to even get a scratch on her, and she had no arms or armor! But her martial arts were truly a sight to behold.
How heroic they look! Elsie thought, sneering. Dalia struck with confidence and power while Esora stood behind her, passionately commanding her surviving robots this way and that. Elsie smirked at both of them. It was time to show them that their efforts at being heroes were in vain, and they were even less than shallow mockeries and cheap imitations of the heroes they claimed to be. It was time to show them what a real supervillain looked like! And so, on the battle of the bodyguards raged, the entire city bearing witness to the barrages and banter.
AN: Inspired by my Abyssmare & Unichord Rarepair Week Anthology (Day 7). In the AN, I said I originally thought of a story where Esora and Elsie's bodyguards battled, but never got the chance to write it because it didn't fit the anthology.
I also had an idea where Dalia thinks she has to rescue Elsie only for the bodyguards to appear and surprise even HER with how effective they are protecting not just Elsie, but anyone else Elsie asks them to (including Dalia herself).
Well, consider this a mashup oneshot attempt at those two ideas, plus the tie-in of Elsie's love for supervillains and Weronika's love for superheroes as per the card story "Road to No.1".
I also once saw a joke that said that Elsie hatches her guards from eggs, so I decided to sort of reference it when Esora notes that she thinks that Elsie keeps switching her guards out during the fight.